


Words Can Wait

by themodlibrarian



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: 1940s AU, F/M, Missing Persons, Newspaper AU, Reporter!Kristoff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5405780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themodlibrarian/pseuds/themodlibrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kristoff agreed to take on Sven's beat for an indefinite amount of time, he'd expected slow news and ribbon cuttings. Not anonymous phone calls asking for an investigation regarding a missing person and puzzle pieces to a plan bigger than his small, two page section in the paper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lovers Will Always Meet

**Author's Note:**

> The week after Thanksgiving, I was swapped from my hard news beat to two softer towns with less scandal and more community. Turns out, my first week on the job, I'm calling the state police and two different prosecutor's offices. Hmm, know how they say write what you know? I guess this is me writing and knowing and being on a Frozen kick.

_BY KRISTOFF BJORGMAN – STAFF_

_ATLANTICA– Children wearing nautical striped shirts squinted against the afternoon sun along Sea Shore Avenue as parents stopped to peer along shelves of watercolors and acrylics during the Atlantica Art Walk’s last hurrah before the coming of autumn. Local artists lingering just behind shoulders or under the shade of trees and awnings, booths and stalls set up between shops and idle before store windows._

_“It shore is a great day so far!” Ariel Grimsby, coordinator, said with a laugh. “Everyone is always so friendly and enthusiastic and we’re so fortunate to have such a gorgeous day, weather wise. As long as storm doesn’t start brewing,” Mrs. Grimsby paused and knocked against the wooden doorframe to her side, “we’re golden.”_

_Mrs. Grimsby’s mother, Athena Benson began the event twenty-five years earlier as a means for artists all over Yensid to showcase their work._

_“Elsa Rendell from Arendelle is here with her snowflake paintings, I convinced Mr. and Mrs. Frederickson with the threat of tears to join us this year and even James Hawkins– though he’s not a painter–agreed to drop by,” Mrs. Grimsby said. “The day’s not even over– but I can’t wait for next year!”_

Kristoff lounged at the unfamiliar desk, feet propped up between the telephone and typewriter with his hands behind his head. He looked up at the slanted windows overlooking the expanse of October country: scarlet and orange leaves like flames, coloring the otherwise plain office in shades of autumn.

“I promise I won’t be _too_ long,” Sven had said the week before, stuffing shirts into a suitcase. “And Arendelle is quiet anyway. The most exciting thing that’s happened in the last four years was when the mayor found his missing daughter.”

“I thought that was in Corona,” Kristoff had said, grinning from across the matchbox apartment they shared, straddling a backwards facing chair.

“You catch my drift.”

Kristoff couldn’t begrudge Sven: Arendelle _was_ quiet. Boring quiet. A glance at the community calendar to his right showed a food drive at the local library and a ribbon cutting for a new Westergaard shop in the upcoming weeks. Turning up the pages of the mostly white boxes, he saw that perhaps the biggest event, the Open Door Gala, wasn’t until the second week of December.

If it hadn’t been for the weekend shift, Kristoff probably would not have needed to even come to the office for production.

“Ooh, how I envy you Arendelle.”

Jane Porter, British, brunette and very becoming, stopped by Kristoff’s new(ish) desk on her way out. She wore a flattering yellow shirtwaist dress with an open lavender collar, sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She propped a fist against her hip, a camera hanging from around her neck.

“I’ve got hunters bumbling about on a _wildlife preservation_ and their _stupid_ representative can’t even answer his bloody phone,” she said. “And Sven played bridge last week for two hours with a woman turning 100.”

Kristoff raised a brow. “Why don’t you just barge into his office, then?” he said. “Demand some answers or so help him, you’ll pen a sensational expose on him for next week’s edition?”

Jane rolled her eyes and blew her hair back from her face, slumping with her hip against the edge of his desk.

“Last time I did that, I was escorted off the premises and warned that if I ever pulled something like that again, I’d be issued a restraining order,” she said.

“They can’t do that.”

“Ah, but they did,” she said with a half-smile.

Kristoff snorted. “Well, if it helps any, I’m still covering the North Mountain, too.”

Jane rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Oh, please,” she said. “You took up all of half a page last week. The only reason they hired you to write for North Mountain was because you were already working as a ranger there.”

“Guilty as charged.” He motioned toward the camera. “What’s happening?”

“The Westergaards are opening another store downtown,” she said, crossing her eyes. “My God, this is probably their _tenth_ one in just as many months.”

Kristoff glanced at Sven’s–his–calendar again. “I think I’ve got one of those coming up, too,” he said. “Maybe we should put together a double truck. Compile every opening and celebrate it for them.”

Jane laughed. “I’ll bring the champagne.”

The telephone gave a sudden shrill and Kristoff jumped. He put his feet down off the desk in a hurry and reached for the candlestick as Jane offered a salute before turning away. Fitting the earpiece against his outer ear while pulling the rest of the phone close enough for his breath to fog against the black polish, felt unnatural. No one called up at North Mountain.

“Hello?”

“Is this Sven Fjord?” A woman asked, her voice low and rushed.

“No. Sven’s on– leave, I guess. This is Kristoff Bjorgman.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she said and hesitated only a moment before forging ahead. “I need to report a missing person.”

Kristoff looked around at the mostly empty office. Milo Thatch from letters and obits still lingered, but hardly seemed the right person to ask for advice. “I think you need to call the police about that first,” he said instead.

“I have,” she said. “The police are aware but– well. It won’t make it into any papers unless someone asks about it.”

Kristoff frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone’s been told to keep this on the down low so as to not cause a scandal,” she said. “But it’s not necessarily a secret– at least, I don’t think it should be a secret– so someone just has to ask the right questions.”

“And what are the right questions?”

She laughed then, a breathy, frantic sound over the tinny line. “That was one,” she said, then turned somber. “A woman disappeared from her home three nights ago at around 6:45ish in the evening. Identify her– and you’ve got one heck of a scoop.”

She hung up before Kristoff could get another word in.

Several desks down, Milo adjusted his glasses, not looking up from the text wedged between a lamp and half a sandwich.

“From this end that sounded pretty cryptic,” he said. “I can’t imagine how it must’ve sounded on your end.”

Kristoff squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes for a moment. Despite being just short of promised that his ride with Arendelle would be a smooth one, a mysterious phone call concerning more excitement than the office had seen in perhaps three years didn’t surprise him as much as it should have. Part of him felt like he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Sven planned this,” he murmured, shuffling through loose papers until he found an index of numbers in the second drawer to the right, under a bag of moldy baby carrots. Fingers catching in the dial, he rang the Arendelle Police Department.

“This is Olaf.”

Kristoff started. “Hello, my name’s Kristoff, I’m a reporter for Yensid Weekly. I um. Had a few questions regarding a missing person?”

“Missing person?” Olaf said, exclaiming more than questioning. “Huh, I’m gone for four days and I’m already out of the loop. They don’t tell me anything anymore.”

Kristoff listened to papers shuffling for a moment before continuing. “I got an anonymous tip about a woman disappearing three days ago around 6:45 in the evening?”

“Six forty-five,” Olaf repeated, dragging out the vowels as the phone jostled against his ear, papers and cloth running over the mouthpiece before he shouted another exclamation. “Found it! Wow, they sure dumped it at the very bottom of this pile. Okay! Yes, Tuesday, October the thirteenth, a twenty-five year old female vanished from her home on Cobblestone Way at approximately six-forty five. Hans Westergaard reported the incident that evening…”

Kristoff looked up from his hurried scribbles in the stenographer notebook, black ink smudging against his wrist. “Wait, Hans Westergaard reported the missing person?” He hesitated and glanced at his calendar where an upcoming Tuesday was circled in red pencil, “Westergaard Ribbon Cutting” written in Sven’s careful hand. “Exactly who is missing?” he asked, sitting up straighter.

Olaf missed a beat, breath catching in what might have been surprise. “Well,” he said. “It’s Miss Elsa Rendell.”


	2. Meadow in the Midst

_BY KRISTOFF BJORGMAN_

_ARENDELLE– Town police are currently engaging in what is now a week long search for the missing Elsa Rendell, 25, who disappeared from her Cobblestone Street home last Tuesday evening, Oct. 13._

_Officials say no new evidence has surfaced between Miss Rendell’s disappearance and now, suggesting that perhaps she may have left on her own given her history of fierce independence and reclusiveness since the death of her parents, former senator Adgar and Iduna Rendell five years earlier._

_Friends and family, however are reluctant to accept this theory any longer, claiming it is not in Miss Rendell’s nature to leave her loved ones without a word._

_Hans Westergaard of Southern Isle Industries and a close family friend, has been very vocal about Miss Rendell’s disappearance, criticizing Arendelle police for not acting quickly enough._

_“Maybe it’s not my place to really say it, but Elsa is ill,” Mr. Westergaard said told Yensid Weekly. “She’s a delicate woman and she needs to be found.”_

_Mr. Westergaard explained that, at first, he and the Rendell family had themselves believe Miss Rendell set out on her own for the evening for a walk as it is in her temperament to crave time to herself, even during most inappropriate times. While worried at first, they hoped that perhaps she would return soon. When she had not returned by the following morning, they notified the police._

_“It was my idea that we keep this quiet for a bit,” Mr. Westergaard said. “I’m to blame for the delay. I take full responsibility. But I’m sure everyone is aware of how large a presence the Rendell family has in Arendelle–the last thing I wanted was to cause a hysteria and draw unnecessary scrutiny to a suffering family.”_

_Public information officer for the Arendelle Police Department, Ptl. Olaf Guhmraw explained that Miss Rendell’s disappearance is still an ongoing investigation. He also said that if anyone should know anything regarding Miss Rendell’s whereabouts or regarding this case, to please contact the Arendelle Detective Department._

“And your first week on the job,” Sven said over the sound of the train. “I don’t know whether that’s luck on your part or mine.”

Kristoff snorted, hunched over his desk. He’d pushed down his suspenders and loosened his tie. A half-empty bottle of the strong stuff sat in front of him. He drank it out of a paper cup.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Lucky for me, I guess. But now I actually have to talk to people, Sven.”

“So, lucky for me, then, actually,” Sven said, his laugh loud and hearty even within a crowded station. “What are you still doing at the office, anyway? It’s near… eleven.”

“I had that Westergaard ribbon cutting,” he said. “They pushed it back and turned it into a vigil for Elsa Rendell. I think people bought things from the store in her honor.”

“Ahh,” Sven said, sighing, pity and relief in the sound. “That man is a heel. Did you meet his sweetheart?”

“Redhead? No. Should I?”

A whistle blew loud over Sven’s next words and Kristoff winced. “–were looking. She’s a swell gal,” Sven said, finishing a sentence Kristoff missed. “Real sweet, super private. But he’s absolutely fooling around on her.”

Kristoff shook his head. “Shame,” he said. The whistle blew again.

“Listen,” Sven said. “I gotta go. But really, this is lucky for you. Get out of your shell. Meet new people. Let bygones be bygones and chase some skirts, will ya?”

“Talk to you, Sven,” Kristoff said, laughing, and hung up.

Closer to midnight and an empty bottle later, Kristoff had just stood up and stretched when his phone rang. He stared at it a moment, listening to its shrill, two, three, four more times, weighing his options and considering different possibilities before sitting back down and picking up.

“Yensid Weekly.”

“I have a license plate number,” the woman from last week said. She spoke low, the sounds of glass clinking and a chorus of overlapping voices going on behind her. “Can you run it for me? Please?”

Kristoff hesitated. “I won’t be able to do anything until Monday,” he said.

“That’s fine. Do you have a pencil?”

Kristoff sketched the combination N-O-5-I-9-3 onto the edge of the Westergaard opening press pass.

“Have you reported _this_ to the police?” he asked, tucking the ticket into a drawer. He wrinkled his nose at a can of baby carrots, soft and soggy in yellow tin.

The woman hesitated and Kristoff could hear a man and woman’s voices move past her, high and jovial compared to the low and hurried way she spoke. “I’m unsure of who to trust,” she said.

“So you’re trusting a complete stranger?”

She made a frustrated sound, something between a snort and a sigh. “You’re the press,” she said. “That’s different. You’re supposed to let the public know about these sorts of things.”

“And the police are supposed to help when you need it,” Kristoff said.

He listened a moment to the faint murmur of conversation from her end of the line before she swallowed, hard enough for him to hear. “I understand if you don’t want to help me,” she said. “I’m sorry I caught you so late at the office. You’re probably hoppin’ to get on home.”

Kristoff sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Okay,” he said. “What will this plate tell me?”

“Are you sure?” she asked.

Kristoff waited. Then heard the creak of a hotel phone door close and a rustling of silk and taffeta.

“I remember first seeing that car with that particular plate outside m-Miss Rendell’s house– well, around the corner from it,” she said, pressed close to the mouth piece. Kristoff could hear the wet press of her lips against the words. “The car had blacked out windows and white wall tires and I remembered the plate because I thought it was funny the plate said ‘No’. I saw the car again recently– in town and– I’m afraid of what that might mean.”

“Okay.” Kristoff leaned back in his chair, putting his feet up on the desk. He tilted his head back in exasperation when he knocked over a stack of photographs. “Okay, I’ll run the plate for you. Is there a number I can reach you at?”

She hesitated. “I’ll call you,” she said.

“What are you so afraid of?” he asked, sitting up then.

The woman didn’t speak for a moment. Kristoff could hear laughter and silverware. “I think that if you run that plate,” she said, slow and soft, her voice more like background noise to the party behind her. “You might unlock something. Or perhaps someone’s real plan. I don’t know exactly– but I get a really bad feeling. Down to my toes.”

Kristoff squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Alright,” he said. “Okay. Thanks for the head’s up, by the way. You got me one helluva scoop last week.”

The woman laughed faintly. “And not the kind for ice cream,” she said and hung up.

Kristoff rang the Motor Vehicle Department first thing Monday morning. A bored woman with a smoker’s voice answered, extremely hesitant to extend any help, especially when Kristoff called three times between 8:30 and 4.

“it’s not even an Arendelle license plate,” the woman, Roz, said, when Kristoff spelled out for her what it was that he wanted. “It’s not even a Yensid specific license plate.”

“Where’s it from, then?”

“You’re probably looking out past Corona,” she said.

Kristoff rolled his eyes. “Corona is in Yensid.”

“I said looking out past Corona.”

Jane moved past his desk, her arms full of folders, a cup of coffee in her free hand. She gave him a sympathetic smile and put the cup down next to his typewriter. Kristoff caught her eyes and gave her a look that spoke of both his gratefulness and exhaustion on a Monday. When she dumped her folders onto a desk, she pointed her middle and index fingers to her temple.

“Okay, so who can I call?”

“Try Oaken,” Roz said.

“That’s in North Mountain!”

The line went dead and Kristoff made to strangle the woman through the phone. He hung up and rubbed at his face. To his left, Milo chuckled. He gestured toward the phone with the tip of his fountain pen.

“That about the Rendell dame?” he asked, chin propped up against his forearms. His glasses glinted in the light still coming in through the tall windows. He seemed tired, lying over his desk and dozens of handwritten, unread letters. Santa letters, he’d said earlier in the week. They come earlier every year.

With a sigh that seemed to relieve none of the tension in his body, Kristoff shook his head. “I couldn’t even tell you,” he said.

Oaken was more helpful than he proved in the past, for which Kristoff was grateful, yet wary. He still remembered all the times Oaken had thrown him out for questioning regarding the well-being of his business and poor reviews of his goods.

“I remember that car, yeah,” Oaken said. “Two fellows driving it. They might be from the next town over. Got a bootlegger feeling from them.”

“What town am I looking at?” Kristoff asked.

“Berk,” Oaken said.

Kristoff hung his head. “What do the fellas look like?”

“Oh, um,” Kristoff could hear Oaken’s shrug. “Redheads, mean, one of them has an eye patch.”

“Eye patch,” Kristoff repeated.

“Yeah, can’t miss him,” Oaken said. “By the way, we’ve started our big summer blow out. Are you still our North Mountain correspondent? We’re also finally opening the sauna. Come by and do a feature on it sometime.”

Kristoff gave his regards and was about to hang up when Oaken shouted.

“By the way, the Westergaard boy was here last week,” Oaken said. “You know, the one always in the papers? He was wearing a hat and muffler. I don’t think he wanted to be recognized though.”

“Wait a minute,” Kristoff said, perhaps louder than necessary, leaning forward in his chair. The office had gone quiet, but Kristoff didn’t notice. “Hans Westergaard was up at North Mountain meeting with these two fellas from Berk?”

“Is this a bad thing?”

Kristoff sighed and ran a hand through his hair, propping an elbow up on the edge of his desk, and looked toward the calendar, wondering when Sven might decide to come back home.


	3. Roses Are Sighing

_ARCHIVES JUNE 23_

_BY PASCAL SCHUTZENGEL_

_CORONA– Corona Police are asking residents to remember to lock their doors and secure their motor vehicles following a string of recent break-ins along Hover and Broad Avenues, which resulted in the death of a Hover Avenue neighbor last week._

_Police officials announced the arrests of John and Jeffrey Stabbington earlier this week, both charged with theft by unlawful taking, manslaughter and possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes._

_According to Detective Lieutenant Maximus Forbes, both men were processed at Corona Police Department where various items including credit cards, handbags, an assortment of jewelry and an Enfield revolver was uncovered in their vehicle, which has since been impounded._

_John Stabbington, 34, was previously arrested for assault last month in Atlantica while Jeffrey Stabbington, 38, retains a record of police encounters ranging from robbery, assault and bootlegging all along the western shore._

_For residents of Broad and Hover Avenues as well as surrounding neighborhoods, lost items can be retrieved at the police department._

_While Detective Forbes said that no new information regarding the whereabouts of Mayor Claudius Licht’s daughter, Miss Rapunzel Licht, has come up, he hinted that these recent arrests may play a part in finally finding Miss Licht, who has been missing since last January. [see related story]_

Kristoff lingered at his desk following production, a list of fast approaching fluff pieces in a folder by the typewriter. He had held off on the important ones: the annual events celebrated in town with nothing new since the early 19th century other than the day of the week, but expected and highly anticipated every year.

“It’s what sells papers,” Milo tried to explain to him late one evening as Kristoff struggled to stretch a 28th annual gala to fit Arendelle’s two page section.

Milo liked to stay late sometimes and use the office’s electricity, reading up on a Native princess who died the century before. He wrote a memoriam for her in Obits each year.

Jane passed Kristoff on her way out, three pencils sticking out of the messy bun at the top of her head, while he tried to understand the point of remembrance dinners for town founders long dead for close to a century.

“You’re here more than Sven is in a month,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning her hip against the edge of his desk. She had a notepad in her left hand, fingers smudged with ink and charcoal.

Kristoff shook his head. “It’s these church fundraisers and boy scout food drives,” he said. “Sometimes they’re interesting, sometimes they’re agony. Plus I’ve been putting off writing that piece for Oaken and his sauna.”

Jane smiled. It was a sad sort of smile that made Kristoff pause from turning back to his tangled ribbons.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Jane asked, moving toward the coat rack and slipping on her camel colored coat. “I think you’re waiting for a mysterious phone caller.”

Kristoff laughed and did turn back to the typewriter that time. “You have no idea how happy I am that she hasn’t called,” he said.

“Oh, so it is a woman,” Jane said, almost purring. “We had a pool going on as to whether it was a man or a woman. And by ‘we’ I mean Milo, Jiminy and Flounder the apprentice.”

“Who’s won?”

“Me,” Jane said, leaning her arm against his shoulder. “Woman’s intuition.”

Kristoff shook his head. He screwed the covers back over the ribbon rounds and scrolled in a new sheet of paper. “So are you all dressed up with nowhere to go?” he said. “Or don’t you have somewhere to be?”

“Ha! I brush off if I ever heard one,” Jane said, swatting him on the arm. “As it turns out, I have a dinner date with the director of the wildlife preservation. As it were, the representative– or attorney– Clayton, or whatever, for the _poachers_ , claims that they did not know they were on a wildlife preservation. _However_ , according to the director, these chaps have been harassing his employees for _months_.”

“So now you’re off to dinner with this director to get his side of the story.”

“Have you never considered detective work, Mr. Bjorgman?”

Words for the review of Oaken’s sauna came slowly, the patter and ring of keys and lines keeping a steady beat to the silence of his phone. Kristoff didn’t realize he’d been waiting for his anonymous phone caller to contact him until he’d thrown his finished story onto Mr. Darling’s desk, feeling defeated at the unreasonable hour.

He was about to pull on his coat and head out when–

“The Weekly, this is Kristoff.”

“Were you at the last Westergaard ribbon cutting?” Her voice echoed, like she was in a bathroom.

“Should we be making these calls a weekly appointment?”

“Were you waiting for me to call?”

“No.”

The woman laughed. “So were you or weren’t you?” she asked.

Kristoff sat back down, drawing the candlestick closer to the edge of the desk. “Waiting for you to call? Or at the Westergaard ribbon cutting?”

“At the ribbon cutting, wiseguy.” Water sloshed against the side of a bathtub.

Kristoff waited, listening to the sound of the water, listening to her sigh. “Yes,” he said. “Were you?”

She hummed. “Did you manage to find anything on that license plate?”

“Stabbington Brothers ring any bells?”

She giggled. “No,” she said. “But they sound menacing. Who are they?”

Kristoff shrugged and leaned back in his chair, carrying the mouthpiece with him. “Local thugs,” he said. “They were caught for burglary in Corona a few years ago. Although,” he leaned forward again, “I have a contact at a trading post up in North Mountain and he said he saw them meeting with Hans Westergaard.”

“What?” Her voice sounded broken then. Broken and small and, later that night when Kristoff would go over the conversation as he lay staring up at the ceiling in his bed, a little scared.

“Oaken in North Mountain,” he said. “He said two guys matching the description of the Stabbington Brothers were at his post recently meeting with someone who looked like Hans Westergaard.”

The woman did not speak for a long moment, the soft slush of water and faucet drip the only indication to Kristoff that she was still there.

“Huh,” she said eventually.

“Really, that’s all I get?”

“Do you want a medal?”

“Well, that information won’t exactly get me a byline,” he said. “Got anything else for me?”

She laughed. “Oh, now you’re asking me for things?” she said. “Well, I suppose it’s only fair. Give and take, yeah?”

Kristoff waited as she moved inside the tub, water lapping over the line like waves at the shore.

“Would you care to interview him?” she said. “Hans?”

Kristoff snorted. “And what? Ask him if he’s been holding clandestine meetings with renowned criminals lately?” he said. “Thanks but no thanks.”

“Well, ask him about his family business,” she said. “His plans for the future. His efforts to find Elsa Rendell.”

Clouds drifted over the moon just outside, white light fading across his desk and returning briefly with a flicker as a nightbird flitted past the window. Kristoff swallowed. He stopped and started a time or two before speaking.

“Where you are right now,” he said. “Are you safe?”

She paused for a beat. “I’m at home,” she said. “What do you mean?”

“Is there a reason why you call me so late at night?” he said. “Why you can’t tell me your name?”

She sighed. “I’m safe for now,” she said. “But. Well, let’s just say that you’ve confirmed some things tonight that I’ve suspected for a while.”

“I think I have an inkling…” Kristoff trailed off.

Her smile, a sad smile, Kristoff imagined, extended to her words. “I’ll be in touch about that groundbreaking interview.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for the delay. I wonder what a slow news week actually does look like. In other news, I spent all my money on comics the other day.


End file.
